The calligrapher's daughter_ a novel - Eugenia Kim [150]
Dongsaeng appeared in the hall. “What is it?”
Soldiers stormed through the vestibule. “Outside! Now! Now!” A thunder of boots and shouts, and Mother and I hurried to the front door. Two soldiers charged into the men’s sitting room and grasped Father beneath his arms. “Everyone out!” They dragged him and pushed us through the house to the courtyard. The servants were driven outside. Mother faltered and I slipped my arm around her waist.
From an open military vehicle visible on the road, a soldier and an officer came through the gate, the officer’s starched uniform the same hue as the dust that swirled in our yard. We were lined up and commanded to bow to the major. The soldiers assembled in a row behind us. The major said, “Which one of you is the spy Han Najin?”
I stood tall. “I am Han Najin,” I said, my breath blasts of steam. I was afraid, but also relieved that it was obviously a mistake, and they hadn’t come for Father or Dongsaeng. “But I am not a spy, my lord.”
“No?” He removed something from his assistant’s satchel. He was clean-shaven with deep eyes, pronounced cheekbones and fair, almost delicate skin. His boots creaked as he neared. “Then what is the meaning of this?” He threw the object and it struck my cheek, then fell at my feet: a thick bundle of letters, colorful American stamps, a New York return address and Calvin’s handwriting, the familiarity of which struck me deeply, far more powerfully than the blow to my face. I held my breath so as not to gasp.
“My lord, if you please,” said Mother, bowing low. “They were married only one day before he went to America. That is all. We have not heard from him, nor has she written to him for several years.”
Father said, “We are loyal taxpayers, my lord.” The major smiled and the soldiers laughed, and my cheek burned anew at this disgraceful treatment of my father.
“I know that you are,” the major said mildly. He turned to me. “You are under arrest.”
I heard the words and knew what they meant, but also couldn’t understand them. I looked quickly to Mother and saw the same disbelief. And pain. How easily my actions, my sorry existence, could hurt her.
“You will come with us.”
If I’m going out, I thought simply, I’ll need shoes. “My lord, my shoes—”
He indicated yes.
I ran to the entryway and grabbed my coat. My vision telescoped as I slipped on my shoes, each foot increasingly far away.
“My lord, where will you take her?” Mother fell to her knees and cried out in Korean, “Father in Heaven, dear Jesus, keep her safe!”
The major looked at her with curiosity. “She will be questioned at the prison.”
Mother pleaded to heaven. “My daughter! Son of God, have mercy!” A soldier guided me to the back seat of the vehicle.
“My lord!” Dongsaeng stepped forward, his teeth chattering with cold, “We can pay—” The major made a quick movement to a soldier who spun my brother and butted a rifle into his gut. Dongsaeng clutched his stomach and slumped to the ground. Father reached for him and the soldier clubbed Father’s shoulder. He fell to his knees.
“Abbuh-nim!” I cried. “Dongsaeng!” I heard Ilsun retching. The major’s assistant started the engine and turned the car around, and the soldiers let the gate slam and marched down the hill. We drove, every turn of the wheel taking me farther from my wounded family, the trampled earth of our estate, the cold silence of its ancestors.
On the long jarring drive, the engine exhaust making me nauseous, I clung to the railing in the back of the car, and to the memory of Mother’s cries for mercy. Fearful of what lay ahead, I shut my eyes to repeat my mother’s prayer. Instead, I heard in my mind the childhood litany, Like liquid, like water.
The military prison block, massive slabs of gray concrete, seemed iced in barbed wire everywhere I looked. The old police jailhouse where my father had twice been imprisoned, was considered too small for military and Thought enforcement, and was now used for thieves, murderers and drunken conduct. Governor-General Minami had erected this prison compound two years ago, at the